Feature Articles

The Puppet Boss

Alphonse Tieri, also known as Frank, assumed command of the family after
Tommy Eboli was whacked. In 1972, he became the first major organized crime
figure indicted under the RICO statute.

However, at this point, the Genovese crime family, as it was created,
more or less came to an end.

The theory is, that upon the 1969 death of Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino
moved his family into a position of incredible power.

Gambino already dominated the Colombo family when it was led by Joe
Colombo, and when Colombo was shot down in 1970, the acting leadership was
taken over, from behind the scenes by the power-mad Gambino.

By killing Eboli, under the guise of a dope deal gone wrong, and
replacing him with a puppet of his own choosing like Tieri Gambino, he
controlled the whole New York underworld.

This theory also states that Tieri was actually run by a hood named
Philip "Benny Squint" Lombardo, who answered directly to Gambino.

Vincent Cafaro, AKA "Vinny the Fish" and a protégé of Anthony
Salerno, became a government witness in 1986 and told the Feds that at the
time of the Eboli murder, Lombardo was already the boss and Eboli was the
underboss and Fat Tony Salerno replaced Mike Miranda as consigliere.

When it was time to get rid of Eboli, Tieri was promoted to the
position, on paper anyway, as the head of the Genovese crime family, although
he was actually little more then a lightning rod for federal investigations,
allowing Lombardo to work in the background.

Tieri was born in 1904 in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome and smuggled
into the U.S. by way of Marseilles, France, in 1912. He went to prison in
1922 for assault and was considered the biggest loan shark in the country,
controlling most of the gambling and loan sharking in the Bronx, East Harlem,
Brooklyn, Queens and gambling outlets in New Jersey, Florida, Puerto Rico,
California and Las Vegas.

Tieri was involved in the Westchester Premier Theatre scam in
1976-77. The Westchester was an entertainment complex built at Tarrytown, in
wealthy Westchester County, an area just north of Manhattan. The theater was
built as a bankruptcy fraud in a joint venture between the Gambino and
Genovese families.

Frank Sinatra, an old friend to the Genovese family, was brought
into the deal by Louis "Dome" Pacella, a soldier in the Genovese family. Of
the $360,000 Sinatra made to appear at 12 shows, Pacella skimmed $50,000 for
himself as the booking agent.

The theatre eventually went bankrupt, looted of over $9 million.
Tieri was more than probably behind the murder of Angelo Bruno, boss of the
Philadelphia family on March 21, 1980, after Tieri decided that he wanted
Atlantic City for himself.

Although Tieri approved of the hit, he set it up through Anthony
"Tony Bananas" Caponigro, the Philadelphia family consigliere who carried
through with the murder, assured from Tieri that the murder would be approved
by the commission.

On April 18, 1980, Caponigro and brother-in-law Alfre Salerno went
to New York to receive the Genovese family's blessing as the new leaders.
However, once they were there Vincent Gigante, the Chin, had them murdered
because, according to the Chin, the murder of Angelo Bruno was "unauthorized."

Caponigro was tortured, beaten, strangled, shot and stabbed and
then his naked corpse was stuffed into a car trunk with $300 in $20 bills
stuffed into every orifice of his body, a symbolic gesture, indicating that
it was greed that killed him.

Salerno was found dead, stuffed into a mortuary bag, in another
car a few miles away, every bone in his face was broken, three bullets lodged
in his head.

On June 30, 1980, Tieri was arrested and booked under the still
relatively new RICO law--Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.

RICO was the brainchild of Notre Dame law professor G. Robert
Blakey, once a member of Bobby Kennedy's organized Crime Strike Force.

RICO was simple in its concept. It used the actions of mobsters
to prove a pattern of racketeering activity, and then clamped down on the
leader of that activity.

Tieri was the first boss of a family ever charged under RICO, as
head of the Genovese crime family, which was defined as "a continuing
criminal enterprise, although his specific crimes included extortion, murder,
conspiracy, and bankruptcy fraud."

He was found guilty and sentenced in January, 1981, to ten years in
prison.

Tieri died peacefully in his sleep at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York
on April 5, 1981, while free on bail, leaving the Genovese family to face the
question of succession.

If Phil Lombard had been the official boss behind the scenes, as
most experts suspected that he was, then it didn't matter anymore. The
hospitalized Lombard was too old and infirm to take over the family.